Latest print media victim: Blender - <AUTHOR> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=135539 <comment><USER2> Phew... when I saw the headline I thought someone is screwing with the 3D graphics application Blender .

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is the first comment on all blog posts about magazines folding something along the lines of "oh no! I just paid $9 for a two year subscription!" $9 is less than most people pay daily at starbucks. No wonder magazines can't stay in business. The perceived value of print magazines has fallen to near zero.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hate seeing these print publications go, but I can't say that I'm going to do anything to stop it...

They're just too expensive. $6 for a magazine (or more)? When I can get the exact same thing (or a better alternative) online for free so long as I am willing to lend my eyeballs to some advertisers, I am not going to cough up my hard-earned cash just so I can get that joyous tactile feedback of a magazine.

If these magazines want to differentiate themselves from their online counterparts they're going to need to show us, their consumers, that they can do a better job than the bloggers. That is a huge task when you're competing against bloggers who are living the life that they're writing about (I'm looking at you, Bruce Schneier).

Look, a magazine is a delivery mechanism. If you want to start a magazine you have to create your content, then find a publisher to publish it and distribute it, you (or your publisher) have to eat the cost of magazines that don't sell. You need to fill a whole however many pages long your magazine is.

The internet is also a delivery mechanism, the difference is that if you build the content and put it on the digital newstands like reddit,digg, or gibsonandlily.com costs you absolutely nothing, infinitely less than it would cost to put it on its real-world counterpart.

Print media is dying, or is already dead.

Things like Communication Arts, or Print (these are both graphic design magazines) can, I think, remain in business, but the bubble-gum poppy trip such as 17 magazine, or Cosmo are going to disappear shortly (if they haven't already).

Note...me mentioning 17 and Cosmo isn't because I'm a male chauvinist bastard, it's because I grew up in a house with 5 sisters...the house was littered with these magazines.

<comment><USER5> I think that, like newspapers, the value is in the content more than the presentation. So magazines with excellent writing (New Yorker, Vanity Fair), better information (Economist), that nail a niche (National Geographic), or that have a positioning value (celeb mags at the checkout isle) will be much better off.

An interesting example of where the magazine format matters is Seed magazine. It's not particularly special content (kind of midway between Popular Science and an academic journal) but it is well designed and beautiful from front to back. I doubt I'd ever read it online but I love the mag. Ditto for National Geographic.</comment></comment>


How Fucked is Muni - <AUTHOR> http://howfuckedismuni.com/

<comment><USER2> Nice to see something of my own show up on HN.

For the curious:

The site is a very simple Dancer app running in Starman on an EC2 instance. The data comes from ProximoBus (<http://proximobus.appspot.com/>), a lightweight JSON-format wrapper for NextMuni's API.

Three things contribute to a route being "fucked": \- Percentage of vehicles on the route marked as delayed by NextBus \- Size of the smallest gap between vehicles running in the same direction ('bunching') \- Size of the largest gap between vehicles running in the same direction (the other effect of bunching)

Code is up on github: <https://github.com/skimbrel/how-fucked-is-muni> Enjoy!

<comment><USER3> Thanks for this! My dream Muni app would show the average time it's currently taking to get through the Market underground section (where I see most of the bottlenecks, esp. on the N). This is a good proxy in the meantime :)

<comment><USER2> Hmm, that's not a bad metric. Maybe I can write up a special function for the metro lines that computes headways in the Market Street Subway and incorporates those into the status calculations.

The main issue is that until I go through and rewrite the whole thing to do long-polling for every line, it's expensive to compute each route since I have to make several requests to ProximoBus to get all the necessary data. Caching for five minutes helps, but it's still less than ideal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is one of the rare cases where I think sparklines might add a lot to the user experience. A sea of informationless icons doesn't invite me in.

</comment><comment><USER5> I clicked around on seven lines or so, and got "0 out of 0 vehicles delayed, are you sure this line is even running?" several times.

<comment><USER2> Heh. Yeah, that's because a good portion of all the lines listed are rush- hour-only express variants of the main lines, or late-hours skeleton service (for the lettered LRV routes). I'm working on adding information on when each line is scheduled to run and what its expected headway is, so look for the inactive lines to disappear and for info on those that are running to get more accurate!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had no clue what "Muni" was Googling led me to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority.

Most of the routes referenced are here: <http://www.sfmta.com/cms/asystem/routelist.php>

<comment><USER7> I'd guessed either New York or London.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Love the simple interface. I have been giving a site like this thought for the past six months. I like that you haven't focused on "is it on schedule" but more "how long am I going to wait" I would love a distribution of the space between busses and trains at specific stops. For example, for the N line, at Cole & Carl, show me the frequency distribution of time between trains (and include an indication of what it's supposed to be). When three appear all within 5 minutes, I know someone is in for a very long wait.

<comment><USER2> Another great suggestion! I've added all of these as issues in github, so as I have free time I'll start building out more features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is rad. Anyone on here see "Is the L Train Fucked" (<http://istheltrainfucked.com>)? I hacked that together a month or two ago. I hope we start to see more apps built on public transpo APIs!

edit: also on github --> <http://github.com/jgv/is-the-l-train-fucked>

<comment><USER2> Awesome. Your site was my inspiration!

<comment><USER9> Cool! Would love to see sites using transit APIs spread to other cities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it possible to get the positions of all the vehicles in 1 shot? I would hate to hit the API for each vehicle, in every route.

<comment><USER11> Yes, if you make the vehicleLocations request without specifying a route ([http://webservices.nextbus.com/service/publicXMLFeed?command...](http://webservices.nextbus.com/service/publicXMLFeed?command=vehicleLocations&a=sf- muni&t=0)) you get the locations of all the vehicles at once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice. Any plans to expose this via an api?

</comment><comment><USER13> Wait wait, your transit operator has an API? How fucked is that?

<comment><USER14> If by fucked you mean fucking cool, then very.

<comment><USER13> (Indeed, I meant surprisingly cool)</comment></comment></comment>


The Google career path, Part 3: Performance reviews and promotions - <AUTHOR> http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-google-career-path-part-3.html <comment><USER2> No wonder Google lets many services languish. With a system of promotion based on launches of new products/services/features there is no personal incentive to make things work long term. It seems like the person who redesigns the gmail categories for the nth time would get a promotion, but someone who followed up on bug reports, maintenance and stability patches years later wouldn't.

Support is just as important as innovation. There's no point in having great ideas if they aren't maintained. Google doesn't seem to get this...

<comment><USER3> Is there any company where churning through a list of bugs and maintenance projects will get you further in the long term than launching new things? Hacker News generally praises "ship it" culture, where experimentation and measurement is prioritized as the way to succeed. This is considered a good thing in most places and the incentives are not unique to Google.

<comment><USER4> Facebook. See [http://www.quora.com/For-top-technology-companies-what-of- th...](http://www.quora.com/For-top-technology-companies-what-of-their- engineer-time-is-devoted-to-tough-groundbreaking-intrinsically-satisfying- problems-and-what-is-routine-grunt-work-a-1X-engineer-could- handle/answer/Yishan-Wong)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google's system is promotion-by-committee. It ends up having the same pros and cons as any committee-based system. On one hand, it avoids the kind of egregious mistakes and crimes that occur when too much power (i.e. to promote others) is vested in individual people (e.g. managers). On the other hand, committees are risk-adverse and will shy away from controversial actions. People who do good work following expected patterns get promoted. People who do controversial work, or who don't fit into an obvious mold, will have a tougher time, as a committee that can't come to agreement will default to no action.

<comment><USER6> > or who don't fit into an obvious mold,

Genuine question: is that why you went in a completely different direction with Capn'proto than protobufs?

<comment><USER5> Hmm, not sure I exactly understand the question. But I think the answer is probably "no". Cap'n Proto's design came mostly out of someone asking me one day whether two processes could share a protobuf object via shared memory, without serializing and parsing. I found the question interesting enough that I kept thinking about it and that eventually evolved into a design. My reasons for leaving Google had nothing to do with any of this, but gave me a well- timed opportunity to work on it.

I actually primarily quit to do sandstorm.io, and did Cap'n Proto more on a lark, although it turns out to be really useful infrastructure on which to build Sandstorm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level up.

Not at Google, but this is how I've always treated my career. Kind of a step beyond "dress for the job you want."

<comment><USER8> The only problems are when your boss doesn't pay attention and recognize the step up, or when they actively ignore it because you've taken some of the stress of their job and they are averse to potential change/risk if they promote you.

<comment><USER9> Then you take the fact that you're outperforming your title to another company that _will_ recognize it.

Job-hopping (done within reason) is entirely underrated. Your salary will rise at a dramatically faster rate than if you stuck around one place, your responsibilities too, and best of all you get to learn how things are done across the industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The most interesting part of this piece for me was that the peer feedback isn't anonymous. I can see this leading to some uncomfortable situations, but I can also seeing it be a net positive. Getting honest feedback (unrelated to performance review) from one of my senior peers at Groupon was a very beneficial for me.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wondering why the article is not available anymore but here's the cached version: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9XGHjq...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9XGHjqJ6NI4J:matt- welsh.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-google-career-path- part-3.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

[http://pastebin.com/UyvbHcw2](http://pastebin.com/UyvbHcw2)

</comment><comment><USER12> Am I the only one that finds it odd that (according to the article _and comments_ ) the compensation is tied tightly to levels, but the mean salary for each level is considered secret? So you get to know how you "compare" in terms of "performance", but not how much Google _actually_ values you as an employee? Is this just an aspect of "if you generate revenue we pay you more"?

</comment><comment><USER13> > Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist.

Aw.

</comment><comment><USER14> This article has been pull by Google - how predictable! I can't find it anymore. Anybody got a copy they could put up here?

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if VC's apply the same metrics to the new start-up companies. If so, no venture capitals give funds to google.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmm, it seems this page's been taken down now. It's still in google cache though...

</comment><comment><USER17> _That is, nobody is going to say, "You're only an L4, therefore you can't work on this project."_

Someone said exactly that to me when I was at Google. That's kinda how closed allocation works.

 _What I always tell people: If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level up._

At any company, that's the quickest way to get fired. Getting into a turf war with someone with a much higher title? Not a good idea. To be honest, if I were to do Google again, I'd have kept my head down and said "Yes, sir". It can do a lot for your career to work there, but it's not a place where you can safely overperform.

 _However, there is a way to provide private feedback that can only be seen by your manager; in my experience this backchannel is rarely used._

"Yes, I realize that a murder count of 2,500 in a city of 1 million is horrifying. But look on the bright side. That means there were 997,500 people who were _not_ murdered last year."

 _Managers take all of your reviews as input and determine a performance rating, which is a score in one of five buckets to indicate how well you 're doing overall._

As of 2011, you actually get a score between 1.0 and 5.0. Almost everyone is between 3.0 and 4.0. The buckets are very large. "Meets Expectations" is everything from a 3.0 (acceptable for new hires, but damning if you've been there for a while) to 3.4 (slightly above average). If you're in this bucket, you don't know if you've been marked as a loser (and rendered unable to transfer) or are getting 65th-percentile ratings. You can literally waste 18 months on a loser project only to find you can't transfer because your boss gave you 3.0's.

 _These scores are also calibrated against other managers across the organization, to prevent managers from biasing their scores -- an individual manager can 't game the system._

That's a nice way to present stack ranking. Each boss gets a finite number of calibration points and has to pick who does well and who doesn't. If he gets a crappy allotment and desperately needs to use all his points to promote the guy who'll do a startup unless bumped, you could get stuck with a (career- ending) 2.9.

\----

The important thing to remember about Google's promotion process is that it's bicameral. Manager-assigned calibration scores are one component. Peer reviews are another. You need _both_ to advance at Google. Google provides multiple paths to failure, not multiple paths to success. If your manager likes you and gives you 4.0+, you can still get dinged for lack of visibility. On the other hand, if your manager is giving you shit for calibration scores, all the peer review in the world won't get you out of the muck. I've known many Googlers to damage their careers by playing their manager but not the crowd, or vice versa. You need to play both games at the same time.

For a better analysis of Google's promotion/review system, read Piaw Na's essays, such as this one: [http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/04/promotion- systems.html](http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/04/promotion-systems.html)

This is also worth reading: [http://valleywag.gawker.com/eric-schmidt- personally-ruined-g...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/eric-schmidt-personally- ruined-google-employees-review-1587309422)

<comment><USER18> The 1.0 to 5.0 system doesn't exist any more. What is in the OP's blog post is how it's done as of 2014. (Very recent Xoogler here).

<comment><USER9> As someone who has never worked for Google - how does The New Way address the problems he mentioned?

<comment><USER18> Anyone who has a particularly strong opinion (coupled with strong evidence) is likely full of crap, since it just recently rolled out across the company. By the end of the year it'll be more clear what the long-term effects are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level up. Eventually they'll realize you're not being paid enough and will promote you."

\--This sounds really bad. Like a slave trying to move more bricks to show slave-owner that he is not being paid enough.

<comment><USER20> Can you think of a better argument to give your boss for why you should be promoted than, "I am already doing the work of one grade above me"?

<comment><USER21> "I am already doing the work of one grade above me... at Facebook."

I'm joking, but not by much.

<comment><USER22> "I [think] I am already doing the work of one grade above me... at Facebook."

Is more often the case. It's interesting to see folks who act on that thought and find out they were mistaken. A manager of mine once quipped "The grass is always greener somewhere else, but sometimes that is because it's astroturf."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You guys seriously have levels? I've never heard of that before. It sounds awful.

<comment><USER24> Pretty much all companies have levels. Even if it's not something as set in stone as Google's 1-11, or Microsoft's 59+, there's almost always some sort of differentiator, from something as small as "Senior" or "Junior" to denote experience.

<comment><USER15> But that can kill all innovations. Especially, when junior can't report or discuss ideas with the manager, who can make decisions

<comment><USER25> The levels don't work like that, as the blog post describes. They basically count for paygrade and job title, and that's it.

At Google you were basically expected to make all the decisions you had good information on, and you had access to a lot more information than people did at most companies. I launched the [blink tag] easter egg by socializing my ideas around a few peers who said "Cool idea, go for it", implementing it in my spare time, getting a code review, and then e-mailing PR, legal, and Amit saying "Hey, I'm planning to launch this easter egg in a couple weeks, any objections?" I had approval powers for putting stuff up on google.com myself, so in theory I could've launched it with just one other person's code review, but if you launch without approval and things blow up you (and your peers) will never ever be able to do cool stuff again, so it's a nice courtesy to keep the execs in the loop. (Although this rule has been bent before - [do a barrel roll] was launched without any execs' knowledge.)

<comment><USER15> ok, agree, but thats doesn't covered in the article, which can lead to misunderstanding

<comment><USER26> Those points were covered in Matt's _previous two_ articles on the subject.

But Matt is writing primarily for Researchers who leave academia for industry. They are a special class of people who tend to be more.... experienced with pushing back against management to achieve their research goals. However, the same idea applies equally to motivated low-level engineers who want to get things done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> sid- >If you want to get promoted, just start acting like someone at the next level up. This is the most ridiculous thing companies make u do I start acting and working like a CEO will I become one ?

<comment><USER22> No I didn't down vote you, but in my experience that is exactly correct. If you start acting like the CEO you will eventually become the CEO. The tricky bit though is that often times people don't really know _why_ the CEO acts as they do. And that is partly because there is information available to the CEO that isn't available to just anyone, and partly because the CEO is often balancing problems and opportunities that aren't necessarily visible to those outside their direct reports.

One of the first things I try to impress upon new managers is that their job is not about telling people what to do, rather their job is about getting the most done with the people they have on the most important parts of the problem. They have to take the whole set of possible things that could be worked on, and figure out the important ones to invest in. Sometimes the importance comes from being or staying competitive, sometimes the importance comes from keeping things alive long enough to get to the next milestone.

<comment> sid- U live in a more idealistic world than I do There is no point climbing someone else"s organized corporate ladder with 10 levels when u can do ur own experiments :) Don't want to be an old man filled with regret on level 3 or 6

<comment><USER27> I don't see how you would have anyone to blame but yourself if that happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Oh boy. A google career thread on HN. I look forward to measured and thoughtful discussion. Definitely not going to be sidetracked by multi- paragraph rants from some familiar names. No, not this time.</comment>


Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old - <AUTHOR> http://blog.samaltman.com/bubble-talk?one_year <comment><USER2> Here are his three bets reproduced for comments:

1) The top 6 US companies at [http://fortune.com/2015/01/22/the-age-of- unicorns/](http://fortune.com/2015/01/22/the-age-of-unicorns/) (Uber, Palantir, Airbnb, Dropbox, Pinterest, and SpaceX) are currently worth just over $100B. I am leaving out Snapchat because I couldn't get verification of its valuation. Proposition 1: On January 1st, 2020, these companies will be worth at least $200B in aggregate.

Seems he is on track for that one.

2) Stripe, Zenefits, Instacart, Mixpanel, Teespring, Optimizely, Coinbase, Docker, and Weebly are a selection of mid-stage YC companies currently worth less than $9B in aggregate. Proposition 2: On January 1st, 2020, they will be worth at least $27B in aggregate.

Hmm... not as confident but I would not bet against it.

3) Proposition 3: The current YC Winter 2015 batch—currently worth something that rounds down to $0—will be worth at least $3B on Jan 1st, 2020.

[http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/23/here-are-the-companies- that...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/23/here-are-the-companies-that- presented-at-y-combinator-demo-day-day-1/)

[http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/y-combinator- demos/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/y-combinator-demos/)

Might be on track as well, though I am even less confident.

If I were a betting man, I would say he is more right than wrong, and on track for all three.

I think this underscores how long 5 years is in internet time.

<comment><USER3> Basecamp is now a $100 billion dollar company, according to a group of investors who have agreed to purchase 0.000000001% of the company in exchange for $1.

Source: [https://m.signalvnoise.com/press-release-basecamp- valuation-...](https://m.signalvnoise.com/press-release-basecamp-valuation- tops-100-billion-after-bold-vc-investment-c221d8f86ad7#.m4mgha7cp)

<comment><USER4> This is a trite complaint, and in my view, misses what is often bogus about the lofty valuations - liquidation preferences provide a lot of downside protection.

For instance, if I invest $1bn in Uber at a $10bn post and a 1x preference, I get the first $1bn of any sale. Yes, I invested at a $10b valuation, but I don't actually lose any money unless the valuation sinks below $1bn.

This is a much better deal than simply paying $1bn for 10% of Uber, and in my view, actually does not imply a $10bn valuation at all.

<comment><USER5> You're right on, and there may in fact be a half dozen more material economic terms which also adjust down the implied $10bn number. Add into that the fact that each round often has it's own set of terms, and you begin to realize that the "valuation" numbers thrown around mean absolutely nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel better about this now than I did a year ago. Proposition 1 is up about 50% in the first year, and proposition 2 is up about 65%.

The main point remains--we spend far too much time talking about whether or not startups are in a bubble. It's boring and it gets in the way. Sometimes it will be true and sometimes it won't, but the stories claiming a huge bubble for the last 10 years have been generally wrong.

It was telling to me that, even with the fever pitch of VCs calling for the end of the world last year, only one investor (a TechStars mentor) would take this bet.

The goal of this bet was to deflate the bubble conversation, and that seemed somewhat effective.

<comment><USER7> Hmmm. I think at least some of these companies are worth less now than a year ago. Zenefits, coinbase, palantir, mixpanel, etc. am I wrong? Agree on the bubble issue. It's a boring discussion

<comment><USER8> That's why the bet is structured as a portfolio. In startup investing, it doesn't matter if some of the portfolio loses big (or everything) as long as there's at least one winner that expands many-fold.

<comment><USER7> Sure. But I'm sceptical of the claim that the whole portfolio is worth 50% more than last year. I don't know for sure, but as an example, Palantir valuation is down

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/t-rowe-price-marks-down-most- of-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/t-rowe-price-marks-down-most-of-its-tech- startups-1460759094)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was curious, so I looked up what the press has reported on each company's most recent valuation (and therefore, these numbers could be off, because they don't factor in reported write downs / markups from individual investors [i.e. Fidelity], financing rounds not reported by the press, huge gains/downturns in revenue over the last year, etc.)

1.) The top 6 companies mentioned are now valued at $146.5b.

2.) The 9 midstage YC companies mentioned in the article are valued at $15.43b.

</comment><comment><USER10> Did anyone take the bet?

\---

EDIT: OK, found out that "Boston-based venture capitalist Michael de la Maza" took him up on it. [http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/30/technology/sam-altman- tech-s...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/30/technology/sam-altman-tech-startup- bubble-bet/index.html)

<comment><USER11> Lame. It was just someone who wanted to work with Sam. Not someone who actually believed we are in a bubble, and was "Putting his money where his mouth was"

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Previous discussion from longer than 1 year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271679)

My comment(s) then:

Ironically a basic statistics class indicates that cherry picking companies that deliver 2x, 3x and ... whatever the fuck that third pick is ... as a guaranteed return over 5 years is indicative of the overenthusiastic hype that historically surrounds bubble valuations.

#3 is a die roll. #2 is the killer. And I might take the bet on just #1.

I admire Sam's balls but the externalities here are immense. The greatest financial mind of our time built Berkshire Hathaway to $350B over 50 years. GE is worth $250B. Microsoft $340B.

To believe Sam's motley list of companies can either hold onto valuations approaching those "real" companies for five more years, let alone actually generate viable earnings and go public (even at goofy P/E multiples) in line with what GE, Microsoft, or Buffett's candy, ketchup and mac'n'cheese subsidiaries alone make seems ... optimistic at best.

If he loses, might I suggest the book title? "Oops! Brands Aren't Businesses!" by Samuel H. Altman.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would not call tech industry a bubble by any means. However, since my work took me away from Silicon Valley - I have to say there are almost no startups that have really changed my life in any noticeable way. All I have watched happen is my new smartphones and laptops get thinner, and the apps on them switch to flat design language. Glass was neat, more novelty though. Cardboard was cool, also a novelty - plus I don't game so VR doesn't effect me (yet) and on top of that, neither of these were made by a startup - but a huge corporate entity. I thought back in 2010 I would be experiencing my entire tech life through Augmented reality by at least 2015. Needless to say, I am not. :(

</comment><comment><USER14> "The gleeful anticipation of a correction by investors and pundits is not helping the world get better in any meaningful way."

Probably the most important line of the post. Hate that someone invested $<X> M in an app that just sends "Yo" to other people? Great, don't use it, don't invest your money in it. Yelling on the sidelines about how crappy it all is, seems counter-productive. Writing self-fulfilling prophecies to get clicks seems even more egregious.

<comment><USER15> Uh oh, it looks like someone has skin in the game and is worried. :'(

<comment><USER14> More like broke-ass engineer annoyed at my fellow ilk on the peanut gallery. Though in a way, I don't want to return to the days the Blue-Chips ran the show, if that is what you want to call "skin in the game".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So far, I don't think he's right on all 3

<comment><USER16> This would be a much more useful comment if you explained why.

<comment><USER7> If you take the one year out results, and using those growth rates project out to end of bet period, he would not be right on all 3. But it's only been one year and tech doesn't grow linearly. That's why I said so far.

<comment><USER16> Another comment in this thread claims to have done the same analysis and come to the opposite conclusion. But neither of you shared your math. Could you show the analysis that led to your conclusion, so we can compare it to the other one?

<comment><USER7> [http://www.wsj.com/articles/t-rowe-price-marks-down-most- of-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/t-rowe-price-marks-down-most-of-its-tech- startups-1460759094)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Betting on valuations of private companies is a bit silly.

</comment><comment><USER18> TLDR: Venture capitalist claims the tech sector is not in a bubble.

<comment><USER19> Exactly. To be fair, it's pretty hard to remain objective in his spot. If he spent a year anywhere else in the world, doing something different, he would certainly have a different perspective. But that's fine. He should feel the way he feels about this.

I was going to make a similar bet but in the other direction. My instincts say that 90% of the companies mentioned would be out of business by then and the remaining in the "still-going-but-not-relevant/MySpace" category. The coming Tech Winter will be devastating to the unicorns, precisely because so much is expected from them.

But I don't want to be one of those people. A community is built by people supporting each other, up or down, Tuesday or Wednesday. Maybe Sam is right and maybe I am, but at the end of the day, let's innovate and let the future unfold how it will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Protip: Bubbles always last 18 months longer than you think they can.

<comment><USER21> I figured the Canadian real-estate bubble would pop like 5 years ago. Not so much.

<comment><USER22> If the 'bubble' pops now, prices will still be higher than they were 5 years ago. That makes your prediction extra bad.

Unless you normalize by currency, in which case its just a fairly bad prediction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> He'll likely be right on all 3 but only because 1 company in each will disproportionately skew. His bet is overly broad.

Palantir and SpaceX are very promising companies, it's hard to say if their true value will be realized by 2020.

Stripe alone is worth $10-15B if you ask me.

Where he might stumble is the 3rd, however finding $3B of worth in what must be 30+ companies shouldn't be hard, depends how badly the global economy slows in the next 4 years.

I'm not sure this really does much to disprove the insular and bubbly nature of technology investment, however.

<comment><USER24> The skew is the point though. Startup valuations are supposed to work such that a small number of successes make up for a large number of failures. The press loves to harp on the individual cases, but all that matters for valuation is expected portfolio performance.

<comment><USER23> Hedging is a thing in investing, yes. I do agree the press reports when businesses are perceived to not be doing well. I don't know I agree they usually point heavily to that being a venture thing. I'm still not sure much of this is the indicator of a bubble, that's all (it's a pretty boring bet?).</comment></comment></comment>


To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/us/seattle-millennials-economy-student-debt-politics.html <comment><USER2> "Seattle, where she came after college in Utah to study musical theater"

Newsflash, Millenials: there has never been a time to my knowledge when you tell someone you're working on a degree in "musical theater" and their response would not be, "oh, studying to be a waiter, eh?"

"Tech, they say, means military drones, loss of privacy and cyberbullying."

Don't worry, you won't be working at any of the companies involved after your javascript bootcamp. Chin up, tech also means accounting systems at insurance companies. It won't be exciting work, but it'll pay better than musical theater. (Tech also means that phone you can't quit staring at, so if you'd like help off that high horse...)

<comment><USER3> I'm completely baffled by this comment. I went back and re-read the article to try to pick up on the sentiment you're criticizing, and I just can't find it.

The derision w/r/t the woman's educational choice is so trite I'm wondering if it might be satire. Not everyone's goal in life to maximize money earned. Some people value a certain passion over riches, and many other believe that those with a lesser-paid passion deserve to live decent lives, not burdened with excessive debt.

As for the 'tech' comment... it resonated well enough with me, and seemed genuine. I didn't detect any 'high horse' as you call it.

It seems like you went into this article looking for something to criticize instead of attempting to empathize with the situation the individuals face.

<comment><USER4> Am I the only one that found it weird that she's a programmer but studied music? Shouldn't the field have kept her out?

<comment><USER5> I'm curious what age range you are - When I got into the coding field in the early 90s, almost EVERYONE came from non-tech education fields. I've had a sysadmin with a masters in chinese philosophy. I've had coworkers with degrees in fashion, linguistics, and of course, a few people that hadn't finished college at all. I myself did a "make your own major" that combined Comp Sci & Philosophy. My degree has never mattered (though some places did care that I _had_ a degree of some sort). And I can think of only two classes I had that ever directly contributed to coding.

For the curious, one was an algorithms class, and the other was "Group Software Design", where we had lectures about the Waterfall method "which all serious companies use" (it was the early 90s) and had a team that was supposed to code a final project according to the methods taught: so, weeks of requirements and documentation, then a quick spurt of work to actually code it. What really happened was weeks of debating what language/libraries to use, then with 2 weeks left one of us actually stubbed out the code, so his language choice won, then we pulled all-nighters for those 2 weeks to code it. The guy that skipped the coding sessions was told to document it after the fact. It was a highly educational experience that was directly applicable to real coding work :)

I've noticed that coders more often have CS or SE degrees now at work, and that the education is given more attention, though I don't particularly value it - a degree simply assures me that you've done X hours of coding, not that you learned anything nor that what you learned is applicable. Show me anything you've coded on your own time and it's immediately more telling. (and I've interviewed too many college grads that have never coded anything that wasn't for a school assignment)

<comment><USER4> I've always known it was common for programmers to come from many backgrounds. I've even been trying to re-break into it. I have a BS in math and a lot of training toward a master's in economics. This comment was the labor economics in me talking and also frustration because I'm not there. I could delete the comment or leave it as food for thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I totally respect that the subjects of this article are trying to retrain themselves for well-paying careers. What's weird to me though is how many of them, even after observing family economic difficulties, studied things that could never result in a non-poverty life and ran up huge financial loan burdens.

"Seattle, where she came after college in Utah to study musical theater"

"She counts the months until the tech job she hopes to get after Ada can help pay off the $22,000 student debt she has left."

"...studied philosophy and the history of science at St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., has had jobs as a barista, a taxi dispatcher and a deli worker. She has $72,000 of student debt and has never been paid an annual wage, she said, of more than $17,000."

I'm a history and philosophy of science and technology person myself, but it's never paid or pretended to.

<comment><USER7> Millenial pop culture promoted romantic lives of being artsy and unique, following your dreams, and trying to save the world. They were told that money wasn't everything and they should try to live more meaningful lives. Not terrible notions in the slightest, but not focusing on a well-paying career has consequences, and one of them can be a life of poverty. A few years of barely being able to pay the bills and having a lower quality of life can change motivations.

<comment><USER8> > Millenial pop culture promoted romantic lives of being artsy and unique, > following your dreams, and trying to save the world.

High school guidance counselors, the music and TV shows produced by the adults in the room, and many of our parents, thank you _very_ much.

People learn what they've been taught, and a core message to 90s children was "follow your dreams and it'll all work out". It was considered _very_ crass to run the numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What exactly is the point of this article? Everyone featured in this article are living a vastly more fortunate life compared to the majority of the people alive today.

</comment><comment><USER10> Quite a lot of condescension here towards people trying to make a better life for themselves. Were you all really that smart at 18?

<comment><USER11> At 18, senior in high school I knew I wanted to go into film making or cartooning. But I realized (even at 18) that success in either career involved not only talent and skill, but just as much luck as well. I liked computers and understood quite a bit of programming (having grown up during the Golden Age of Home Computers, the 80s) and decided to get a degree in computer science as a fall back.

So yeah, some of us were that smart at 18.

<comment><USER12> Can you tell us about your family, your parents involvement in your education and tertiary study decisions, rough socioeconomic condition etc. Just curious.

<comment><USER11> US citizen, grew up in a small town in North Carolina until 10, then moved to South Florida. I lived in a single parent household (with Mom) and the only involvement in my education was making sure I didn't miss the bus. She never even asked about homework (which was good, since I never bothered doing it). For rough socioeconomic condition I would say upper lower class (section 8 housing in North Carolina) to lower middle class (by the time I graduated high school).

If I wanted to learn something, I was pretty much on my own. I found school to be largely a waste of time but I had little say in attending elementary, middle and high school. I still felt the same way by the time I was graduating college, but I wasn't quite ready to enter the Real World and college was a good excuse to avoid it.

I received a Pell Grant for the first semester of college, but the paper work was insane so I ended up working my way through college. In this, I was fortunate that cheap (as in "too easy to get") student loans had yet to flood the market with money so tuition wasn't insane. That, and I attended a Florida State college as a resident (cheaper than going out of state) and it was only a few miles from home so I saved money there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why did they mention her burlesque dancing? It adds literally nothing to the discussion.

<comment><USER14> Its a slice of life, not a technical discussion. There's photos, not spreadsheets in the article.

</comment></comment><comment> nv-vn I feel like this article tries to touch on way too many issues at once to make any meaningful dialogue.

<comment><USER15> "my income, one of the highest in the world, is not guaranteed for life!"

This Anxious in America series is questionable. The last one about the vape lounge was widely derided even by the Times' usually sympathetic commenters.

That said, they may be reporting on Millennials anxiety but not endorsing it as justified. Just informing us this is how they're thinking.

<comment><USER14> We've seen our parents put half their house's furniture on a credit card and lose their 20+yr jobs 3 years before retirement from a downsize. Tech jobs went through a huge crash once already, and with tech now so firmly entrenched into the economy a general economical recession precipitates a tech collapse (where's the ad money coming from if nobody has a job). If you were born in '85, you've come of age during the first tech collapse, and then 9/11, and then the 2007 great recession. Its burned into me to expect the economy to take a big hit every 6-8 years.

So, maybe, even if you're making 100k a year, you probably are thinking that buying that 2/1 lowest on the market starter home for $500k is a recipe for disaster. But if you'd gotten in 15 years ago, you'd see 300% returns like your parents have on that house.

<comment><USER16> > Its burned into me to expect the economy to take a big hit every 6-8 years.

Good, because that's how it usually is. The 80s and 90s were remarkable for their economic growth and lack of recessions. The business cycle is about 6-8 years.

Our parents had to get mortgages when interest rates were 17%.

Our grandparents grew up during the great depression, and worked when marginal tax rates were north of 50%.

Every generation has something to contend with.

<comment><USER4> It's funny how you throw that number out, 6-8 years. There is no natural assurance within the economy that the bad times will end. The lows do not have to bottom out. That was the lesson of 1929.

<comment><USER17> No, the lesson is to not block recovery via laws passed to satisfy the political need to "do something, anything!".

See "Economics: Public and Private Choice" by Gwartney, Stroup, Sobel, MacPherson. The part you want is "Lessons from the Great Depression", which is Special Topic #6 in the 14th edition.

It's pretty damning. We responded by restricting trade, creating cartels, destroying food, and so many other self-destructive things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think skepticism is good. people need to question the systems in place. The US economy is not efficient and it does not provide for everyone. It actively destroys peoples' lives for the benefits of others and holds others down. further, rosy colored glasses lead people astray. Yes, be careful. (It's also still better than the other governments people have tried, but that really feels like winning a lost contest)</comment>


Work-Life Balance Is Impossible - <AUTHOR> http://emyth.com/blog/work-life-balance/

<comment><USER2> I'm managing it all right.

I work < 40 hrs/week, and I stick to those hours. I don't bring my work home. I don't make my work part of my "self"; I'm polite to my colleagues, but not intimate. When I'm working on a tough problem I'll bring my full intellect to bear - but if the code isn't finished when it's time to go home that's fine, I'll shrug my shoulders and carry on tomorrow.

Life is good. I have enough time for friends and hobbies. I work hard and I enjoy my job, but it's not my passion.

If balance is impossible, maybe you're in the wrong job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like you're making a strategic choice for a period of time ... but is that really what you'll be doing in 10 years?

<comment><USER2> I see no reason why not. I'm making a sustainable salary, it comfortably supports my lifestyle (which is not exactly frugal) and I can put a bit away for the future. Of course lifestyles change, but if I've got money in the bank and a transferable skillset then I'd say that puts me in pretty good shape for the unknown future.

I think people living the way the article described are far less likely to be doing it in 10 years' time. IME very few people treat their job as their passion after starting a family.</comment></comment></comment>


Did Facebook steal the idea of Timeline from Lifeblob? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pluggd.in/facebook-timeline-and-lifeblob-297/

<comment><USER2> Photos and events over a timeline. Yes, it's an idea so far out and original that FB couldn't possibly have come up with it themselves.

Come on, the only thing interesting here is the implementation, and that seems fairly different in most ways. The basic idea is nothing extraordinary and certainly many people could come up with it. In fact, there were similar concepts done manually for historical figures.</comment>


Good design: The ten commandments of Dieter Rams - <AUTHOR> http://www.vitsoe.com/en/gb/about/gooddesign <comment><USER2> Here's a piece of trivia: The original iPhone calculator was designed to mimic Ram's designs (as seen part way down the linked page).

compare:

[http://www.designmuseum.org/__entry/4799?style=design_image_...](http://www.designmuseum.org/__entry/4799?style=design_image_popup)

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/667023357/>

<comment><USER3> Also see:

[http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the- secr...](http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to- apples-future)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recommend this website from Bill Moggridge (IDEO). It's based on a book + DVD but they provide a chapter (of the week) for download and the interviews.

<http://www.designinginteractions.com/>

This week: Chapter 4 – Adopting Technology <http://www.designinginteractions.com/download>

</comment><comment><USER5> Viewing good design, I get the same shiver that I do when I see a beautiful woman.

Those calculators are devastating.

<comment><USER6> "Devastating?" Why would you say that in particular? They look superbly logical but dated to me. I'm more instantly attracted to the speakers and radio, for instance.

I'm guessing you've got more design experience than I do, so care to explain what it is you see when you look at those calculators? I'd love to know.

<comment><USER5> I use "devastate" in a few forms to talk about the effect an attractive woman has on me. With that remark, I generalized the usage towards the calculators, and the beautiful things on the rest of the page helped bring the word out of me too. The whole site (I agree those speakers are great) was beautiful.

I have no design experience, unless you get metaphorical with the word. This just lit my aesthetic taste buds.

But I wish I could know what I _really_ mean with "beautiful". Viewing the calculators, I noticed it felt similar to looking at a beautiful woman; _that_ was novel. I never felt that about a calculator, so I noted it.

And after this experience, I won't squint my eyes at mathematicians when the call equations "beautiful" again.

This is a great question, aesthetic preferences seem odd. This one just hit the right buttons with me.

<comment><USER6> Fair enough.

Today I came across Dieter Rams's shelf design and it had a similar effect on me. If you're interested: <http://www.vitsoe.com/en/gb/about/606/how-it-works>

<comment><USER5> That's great.

I've never heard of Dieter Rams before this thread; I'm not hip to the design world. But some designs do raise my pulse while I looking from the sidelines. Henry Dreyfuss' Western Electric Model 302 phone [1] is a good example.

That phone has the nostalgia effect; that's good in design. Design should be nostalgic, in the sense that it should recall things that you're familiar with and feel comfortable around.

It's useful to look at design as communication. Your trying to same something with the right metaphors. But in this case, it's with three dimensional metaphors instead of words.

[1] <http://www.telephonearchive.com/phones/we/we302.html></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I started with Obj-C/Cocoa Touch 10 days ago - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/moneygone/id675080415?l=en&mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> Before, I made apps using Appcelerator Titanium. Don't ask why I even started with that, Obj-C rocks!</comment>


Petalisp: A DSL in CL intended for high performance array-based computing - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/marcoheisig/Petalisp <comment><AUTHOR> From the author: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Common_Lisp/comments/8f6wez/petalis...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Common_Lisp/comments/8f6wez/petalisp_elegant_high_performance_computing/dy1t2la/)</comment>


Show HN: Brightwork.io (data API Aggregator) Beta Now Open - <AUTHOR> http://brightwork.io/beta/ <comment><AUTHOR> Co-Founder here. If anyone has questions let me know. You can get a high level overview of what brightwork is at brightwork.io.

<comment><USER2> Problems:

1) Your signup page (the link for this post) doesn't say anything about what you do. The signup page and "what is this?" page should be the same.

2) Your landing page at brightwork.io is painfully slow. Don't make us watch animations to find out what you do. Put it in static text so we can read it as quickly as we want.

3) I watched the painfully slow animations, and I still have no clue what you do. Tell me what pain point you're eliminating or what I'll be able to do with your product that I couldn't do before.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback.

Brightwork makes it easier for Developers to gather data from their mobile applications.

What makes Brightwork different is really the ease of use of the dashboard. There are other API Management tools out there, but Brightwork takes the best of the available mobile APIs and puts them in one place for Developers to be able to figure out what's working and what's not working. Think Cloudability, but with data.

<comment><USER2> > _gather data from their mobile applications_

What data? User behavior/tracking? Data from the API that I wrote? Data from a BaaS like Parse?

I still don't understand this at all, and I've never heard of Cloudability.

<comment><AUTHOR> Brightwork is a data API aggregation tool. When you're done building whatever mobile application you've built you likely want to collect data (usage, demographic, etc). Most Developers use more than 1 data API because not every tool collects everything someone wants to collect. So they use multiples because they want to fill in the gaps where they exist.

Brightwork allows Developers to hook in one API ours, and then funnel that information through it to a dashboard where all that data can now be combined, better collected, and better understood.

Once you have the data you want, you can just hit the "Export Tool" which will then output your report in a very easy to use format. Brightwork takes all the heavy lifting out of data collecting.

Hope that helps clear it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why is it called Brightwork?</comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't my ATM know about my language? - <AUTHOR>

I think it would be trivial to add a line of code to ATM so that it knows from my card number that I use English. Why is the first choice always about choosing the language? Is there a privacy problem here? <comment><USER2> With my Aussie ATM, I chose English the first time and it started remembering ever since.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you know if there is a regulatory issue that this is not implemented in the US?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How would the ATM know that you don't prefer French (if you're Canadian) or Spanish (if you're from the USA)? (Can the ATM even deduce which country you're from?)

Is there a standardised space on the magnetic stripe to store your language preference? Or in the network protocol?</comment>


Why Package Managers Are Not My Ideal Software Distribution Mechanism - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mecheye.net/2014/11/why-package-managers-are-not-my-ideal-software-distribution-mechanism/

<comment><USER2> It should be noted that the nix package manager ([http://nixos.org/nix/](http://nixos.org/nix/)) already has:

       * Atomic upgrades
       * Rollbacks
       * Reproducible builds

As well as a bunch of other solutions to common annoyances all as a result of an elegant core design. It's not yet user friendly though (the command line interface is reminiscent of early git), but I'm hopeful that it can be, given a little time and effort.

<comment><USER3> Now make that API agnostic so I can use package from any distribution (deb,rpm,pkg,static build) and I am in!

FYI we also know guix...

My main problem is that you repackage every lib and build it on your own, sometimes some patching is necessary to make it nix aware.

<comment><USER3> And here we go [http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1434](http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1434)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article feels a little confused.

> But today, iOS and Android have redefined the app installation experience, > and packages seem like a step backwards.

I'm no expert on iOS & Android internals. But surely there are packages and a package manager hiding behind the app installation process.

What is different is the UX. The package manager has been given a very different interface.

An important part of this involves cultural assumptions about what users can be expected to know. That a user might be asked what to do with an sshd config file is not a problem with the concept of a package manager, but with the (increasingly incorrect) assumptions made in the Linux world about the technical expertise[1] of the user.

In any case, yes, I'm all for improving the interfaces we use to install & manage software.

[1] Expertise _and interest_. I'm perfectly capable of making decisions about sshd config files. However, _I don 't want to._</comment>


Ask HN: SXSW - Worth it?  Going?  Which Badge? - <AUTHOR>

I'm planning ahead and am thinking of hitting up the conference.  Does anyone have the scoop on which badge is worth getting and what to plan on doing once there? <comment><USER2> Interactive isn't worth it unless you're looking to get the word out or schmooze and network, which are all important things but not if it takes time out of getting an alpha product out.

My 2c. :)

<comment><USER3> I second this. As a conference, SXSWi is basically a boondoggle facilitator to justify tech people attending SXSW at company expense. If you need to network though, it draws a good crowd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> SXSW Music, Interactive or Film?</comment>


Ask HN: How important is it to have a mentor to become a strong developer? - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys.
I've just graduated with an IT degree, though with mediocre grades and lousy career prospects. I'm beginning to engage in my own study, though it's slow going and somewhat aimless - I haven't reached a point where I become utterly obsessive about writing real code. I've abandoned following tutorials I see in feeds and started looking for good textbooks.
Do you guys think it would be good for me to find a suitable mentor? If so, where should I look? <comment><USER2> I don't think it's all that important to have _one particular_ mentor that's sort of a formalized relationship. I do think it's important to surround yourself with people - preferably in a face-to-face environment, like a job or coworking situation - that have done this before and have a bunch of experience in development. Observe them carefully - not just the product of their programming, but the process they go through to create it.

I disagree with the poster who says Google is your mentor. Google's great for sticky questions that nobody knows the answer to. But Google will never tell you that you _should_ be asking a question but don't yet know that it's a question worth asking. A lot of things in programming are like that: you'll see someone do it and think "Why didn't I think of doing that?", but the reason you never thought of it is because everyone who does it considers it too obvious to be worth blogging about.

</comment><comment><USER3> You don't really need a mentor to start. You just need to dive in and start building something you like. Also, stop being a perfectionist and following tutorials front to back. Google is your mentor.

If you really get stuck, there are mailing lists, IRC chat rooms, message boards out there specific to that topic. Explore them fully, don't be afraid to ask a question. But before you ask, make sure you've made some effort to find an answer.

</comment><comment><USER4> Having one or more good mentors will certainly speed your way towards becoming a "strong developer". And all the points nostrademons makes are true.</comment>


Linux USB charging, part 1: requirements - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/693027/ <comment><USER2> It's a well-written, in-depth article about a very technical topic that affects a lot of us daily, but few of us are aware of its implementation details.

Specifically, there is a fascinating section about how to actually charge a phone with a dead battery; there is nasty catch-22 where you have to boot up the OS to negotiate the amount of current you want to draw, but since your batteries are dead and the default un-negotiated current isn't enough to boot, you have to get creative.

<comment><USER3> I'm confused as to why we haven't cut all this mess out by standardizing a dedicated microcontroller in the charging path, that handles AC/battery switching, battery recharging and discharging, etc. without getting the CPU involved. As if you could boot an AT computer so only its southbridge and BIOS were active, without the CPU coming up.

I _think_ recent Apple machines—e.g. the retina Macbooks—might have something like this, given the "Power Nap" feature and the fact that plugging them into power temporarily flashes a charging indicator on the screen even if the computer is "off." But it might really just be that the computer is never really "off" but just in a really deep CPU sleep-state. The test would be to kill the battery of one flat-dead, and then see if the charging indicator still appears on AC-in.

<comment><USER2> I don't know for sure, but I'm hypothesizing that Qualcomm's Quick Charge actually works this way, as the presence of their hardware/firmware/secret sauce is required in both the charger and the device end to negotiate the upped voltage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > BC-1.2 defines a Dead Battery Provision (DBP) which allows for an extremely > simple handshake to request that 100mA be available for a longer term — up > to 45 minutes.

45 minutes is such a long time, what is the practical difference between always providing 100ma and only providing 100ma for 45 minutes? A device can be plugged in at any time, even right after a previous device had used the port for 45 minutes, so this rule seems to me to de facto say that a port must provide at least 100ma. If my understanding is correct, then why have the rule at all? Just make 100ma the unnegotiated power instead of 2.5ma.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think I've come across any USB ports (even on laptops) that don't just always have the full 500mA --- or more --- available, because doing that is easy and cheap. Adding the software negotiation is another layer of complexity that no one really wants.

<comment><USER6> 1\. As far I as saw from the article, this is mostly for negotiating more power, not less. I just skimmed it, though.

2\. A USB hub might have less than the full 500 mA to offer to each of its ports if its host only offers 500 mA and it does not have a separate power supply (which four-port hubs usually don't).

<comment><USER7> In USB terms, "more power" is technically anything over 2.5mA, realistically over 100mA.

The original intention of USB was for host to actively limit the current available. But before it started to be reasonably cheap to do so, everyone went with the simpler implementation of connecting VBUS to whatever +5V rail the device has (in more sane implementations thru some kind of (poly)fuse), with some standards that include USB even making it technically impossible to limit current by software (AGP, various late 90's "single cable to display" interfaces and so on) by not including any wires to do so. Even bus powered hubs typically just connect the VBUS together and when some downstream device does not obey the current limit, the whole thing just fails randomly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is the purpose of this article? An outline for future work in the Linux USB stack for implementation? The beginning of the article are not encouraging:

> [...] will conclude in the second part by looking at how Linux does, or more > often doesn't, make use of this information.

<comment><USER9> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12157568](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12157568)</comment></comment>


Seagage Employees Tax Forms Exposed in Another Payroll Phishing Attack - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/seagate-employees-w-2-forms-exposed-in-another-payroll-phish <comment><AUTHOR> At what point are people going to stop and think, "why does my CEO, who's never asked for anything like this before need all the W2 info for past and present employees?"

It's now making headlines and becoming a known enough occurrence that I think people should start being terminated if they didn't at least try to verify the request by calling the person asking for this to be done and having them affirm the request.</comment>


Amazon may have patented the next big thing in online shopping - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1143096/amazon-may-have-patented-the-next-big-thing-in-online-shopping/ <comment><USER2> would this be prior art?

[https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/10/whats-better- incentivized-...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/10/whats-better-incentivized- or-non-incentivized-app-install-campaigns/)

or this:

[https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/228577/the- da...](https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/228577/the-dark-side-of- incentivized-video-ads-take-noti.html)

<comment><USER2> wouldn't it be better to incentivize to Saas customers to watch tutorials, since the more they know how to use the product the more liky they are to continue using it?</comment></comment>


Students 'Given Dose Equivalent to 300 Coffees' in Botched Test - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/25/students-caffeine-newcastle-crown-court-northumbria <comment><USER2> For comparison, 30g of sugar (1 oz) are 4 or 5 sugar sachets. You don't put 5 sugar sachets in a cup, because it's too much. You don't put the equivalent of 5 sugar sachets of instant coffee in a cup, because it's too much!You don't put the equivalent of 5 sugar sachets of pure caffeine in a cup, because it's too much!!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _" The calculation had been done on a mobile phone, with the decimal point in the wrong place, and there was no risk assessment."_

Sloppy. Calculation and dosage are points where mistakes are made.

 _" The students had volunteered to take part in a test in March 2015 aimed at measuring the effect of caffeine on exercise. They were given 30g of caffeine instead of 0.3g,"_

Drug enhanced performance testing?</comment>


Show HN: The Xing Framework, Rails API and Angular, Simplified - <AUTHOR> http://xingframework.com/home <comment><USER2> At first I thought that the framework is something by the social network [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XING](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XING)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, the name's a coincidence ... no connection to the German social network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you have any working examples of apps using the framework? I took a look at the Github repository for the project and didn't really see any, but I could easily have missed something.

I have made a couple of trivial Angular/Rails apps and I had a lot of fun using Rails as a backend with Angular consuming the API that I throw at it. Was just curious to see how the framework could possibly add to the experience.

<comment><USER3> For a production app, see [https://yoric.co/home](https://yoric.co/home), but i'm afraid we can't share the code.

For examples, there's a tutorial walkthrough in the book, which we will be continuing to expand for the next few weeks. ([https://xingframework.gitbooks.io/the-xing- framework/content...](https://xingframework.gitbooks.io/the-xing- framework/content/tutorial.html))

<comment><USER4> Saw your response to hello_newman and checked it out. More interested in the code (and its organization) than the finalized app, but I will check out the tutorial when I get some free time.

Thanks for being so responsive, looking forward to building something with your framework sometime soon!

<comment><USER3> Fantastic! Feel free to reach out when you give it a stab. We're looking for feedback and happy to provide help to our testers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is awesome, and something I would use a lot. Do you have any examples/code of projects using this?

<comment><USER3> [https://yoric.co](https://yoric.co) is built on a prerelease version of Xing Framework, but the code is proprietary.

There's a tutorial in the book ([https://xingframework.gitbooks.io/the-xing- framework/content...](https://xingframework.gitbooks.io/the-xing- framework/content/tutorial.html)), which is small to start but we are actively expanding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting (unusual?) choice of a hypermedia API structure. Were you having a lot of issues with RESTful APIs?

</comment><comment><USER7> Is backend/db/migrate/ empty on purpose?

Rake initialize crashes at db:seed.

<comment><USER7> solved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a project manager, I've used this in two projects over the last year (of four done through our company). If you have questions or thoughts I'm here to help.

</comment><comment><USER8> Angular or Angular 2, or both?

<comment><USER3> It's Angular 1.4 at the moment - the project was started well before A2 had anything like a coherent direction for its API. Releasing an Angular 2-compatible version is one of our top priorities for the next surge of development.

That said, Xing uses Hannah Howard's module A1Atscript ([https://github.com/hannahhoward/a1atscript](https://github.com/hannahhoward/a1atscript)) to add a very Angular 2-like TypeScript annotation syntax, including A2-like component architecture.

That should make Xing apps much easier to translate to Angular 2 than other Angular 1.X apps.</comment></comment>


Tech Burnout Suggestions - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/toomuchtech/5737051

<comment><USER2> Hey friend,

You're not alone. I want to bump suggestions for going offline - vacation to Hawaii for a week, hike, bike ride, whatever. Just don't be online for a little bit.

Some other suggestions that have helped me:

1) Read! Have you read Good Omens? How about Ender's Game? Sci fi is great for tuning off.

2) Get a hobby involving something physical ... gardening, carpentry, flying an RC plane.

3) If you want to stay techy but do something physical, consider getting an Arduino. Build blinking LEDs or something else that's cool!

</comment><comment><USER3> > The problem is that I'm bordering on clinical depression (so my doctor tells > me). The reason is that I'm hyper-focused on tech: I'm glued to my iPhone, > read HN all day, read books on programming, hack on nights and weekends.

I'm not telling you not to trust your instincts, but be aware that it's really really common for people your age to be diagnosed with clinical depression due to biological/hereditary reasons.

</comment><comment><USER4> I got burned out at my second tech job at a start up when I was 20. I've been clinically depressed since 16 and it gets worse as I age, however I've been physically active which seems to help by measure of 5%. I do see myself committing suicide down the road. I just wanted to comment that I understand how you feel. I live in east bay area if you want a friend but it can be quite a distance from SF.

<comment><AUTHOR> email me

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can you find non-tech people who you gel with in SF? Maybe go somewhere welcoming to new people like a burning man party, or something sports related or whatever you're into.

Do you have many non-tech acquaintances you can re-kindle a relationship with?

</comment><comment><USER6> News, economics and (especially) politics do not matter in your life. You have no control over those things anyway (lets be realistic).

<comment><AUTHOR> well neither does a javascript/rails/go/node/closure library that will fall out of fashion in a couple of years only to be replaced by something that does the same thing with a "fresh, new and more fun" syntax.

The point being; it's valid to think through and create articulations on all of these things that we have no control over anyways.

I'm just tired of doing it exclusively for tech things that ultimately don't matter.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Woah, thought nobody was going to catch this, glad to see some people did, thanks for the replies!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm looking to find people to help me. Please read my post.</comment>


RDBMS among top inventions ever - <AUTHOR> This Register article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/18/so_just_what_is_the_third_great_invention_of_all_time
raises the idea that the RDBMS (relational database) is among the most influential inventions ever.
Its effect on society is far less visible to the average person on the street than say the Internet or nukes, but it runs most the key systems and infrastructure of society. It allows quick access to billions of data items via almost any attribute. Before, you had to be selective about which attributes you could search, group, and sort on.
It outlasted and out-competed its competitors such as hierarchical and navigational databases, object databases, and even survived the "no-sql" movement (fad?) by making relatively minor changes to scale better.
It's the "Office Space" Milton of IT: Does most the real work, stuck in the basement, lacks a snazzy interface, and gets no respect. <comment><USER2> Absolutely well deserved. Particularly SQL, the simple and consistent standards based interface to data that is uniform across all DB vendors and Operating systems. The fact that RDBMS and particularly SQL has stood the test of time is both testimony and reason for the unreasonable amounts of unlocked productivity in the applications programming industry. And these include all web applications. Without this, almost every application would be re inventing its own database, just like we see in so many no-sql applications.

</comment><comment><USER3> Given that SQL DBMSs are so far from a true RDBMS, imagine where we would have been today if true RDBMSs rather than SQL ones had been implemented.

<comment><USER4> Would you mind expanding on that point? I know a bit about relational databases and more about SQL, but I never knew heard anything about SQL not being a true RDBMS. I'd be interested in hearing where they diverged

<comment><AUTHOR> The biggest complaint is that SQL allows "bag output", meaning the result table (output) doesn't necessarily have to have or echo a unique key (singular or compound). Dr. Codd's definition of "relational" wouldn't allow such. ("Bag" is a type of data structure.)

I've argued there are times when you want to suppress the key, such as giving data to an outside customer where you don't want them to have the internal key. Query languages such as REL that don't allow "bag output" require silly gyrations to remove the key from the output.

As a compromise I have proposed SQL require a clause "ALLOW BAG" before it allows bag output. This would prevent most inadvertent bags. (I'd like similar for "ALLOW CARTESIAN" to prevent inadvertent Cartesian joins. It's a far bigger actual problem than bags, in my experience.) I believe this comprise is good enough and avoids having to totally throw out SQL and start over. (SQL has other annoyances, but REL doesn't solve most in my opinion.)</comment></comment></comment>


America Is Abusing Algorithms While Celebrating Identity Politics Warfare - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/futuresin/america-is-abusing-algorithms-while-celebrating-identity-politics-warfare-a621ed76c366 <comment><USER2> It's funny how, for the Obama election, which used the same tricks and ads as Trump, he's celebrated as 'modern', 'innovative'... and when it's Trump who's doing it, it's a threat on democracy...</comment>


Show HN: ng-quiz – an Angularjs quiz in spirit of the Ruby/Perl quiz - <AUTHOR> http://schneide.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/introducing-ng-quiz-a-javascript-angular-quiz-1-letter-crush/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not a kind of quiz but more a monthly programming challenge.</comment>


There are 100 million electric bikes in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904334,00.html

<comment><USER2> > "The Chinese have a hundred million people on electric bikes," says > Jamerson. "That means a hundred million potential customers" for electric > cars.

That's the kind of absurd and ill-informed thinking that brought GM to bankruptcy (and yes, this guy is a former GM employee). I moved to China a month ago, and I was astonished to see the number of e-bikes here. There are a lot of cars too, but they are clearly not practical. While US is designed for cars (highways, suburbia life, big stores with parking, etc...) in China owning a car seems extremely inconvenient: No places to park, horrendous traffic jams, stress, narrow streets, not even mentioning the cost of the car itself and maintenance.

In the city I live (Shenyang) a bus ride is 1 yuan (US$0.14). A taxi ride is between 8 to 20 yuan (US$3). Plenty of streets have bike lanes and every store has free bike / e-bike parking. The ROI in owning a car must be ridiculous, and it is very inconvenient.

To believe that every e-bike owner one day will be a electric car owner is totally naive IMO.

<comment><USER3> I live in Beijing. You would have to pay me to own a car here. The traffic absolutely terrifies me.

I'm aso pretty certain renting (i.e. using a taxi here all the time) is cheaper than owning in this case. And who doesn't like being chauffered around?

All that said, I don't think people buy cars here so much for convenience as for status.

<comment><USER4> Actually me and my wife worked it out for suburban Canada for one person. It turned out its significantly cheaper monthly to use taxi's for all work travel than owning even a cheap vehicle (not including tax, fuel, maintenance etc, we did solely the 0% finance price for the duration of the warrenty). Assuming the number of trips double after work, I think it just broke the 0% finance price for monthly travel, again not including anything at all.

However, bus prices are at least 1/3 as that for a taxi; her work is approximately $10 a trip, bus is $2.75 per trip. It works out to $20 a day for taxi ($25 on a bad day), $5.50 a day for bus.

I'd say almost everywhere, people buy cars for status and not convenience. I'd say it's a different matter when rural, but in the city it's certainly a status symbol. I frequently see people driving a $50,000 SUV on their own, yet I've been quoted $75 a day for a 7 seat SUV, which is pricey monthly, but dirt cheap in the long run if your vehicle is regularly a 1 person car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This must be a great business opportunity! What do electric bikes need?

<comment><USER6> electricity

<comment><USER5> Free electricity!

<comment><USER7> Solar cells over back tire, then?

<comment><USER8> The energy ROI on that surface area of photovolcaic cells would not make that feasible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How different is an electric bicycle from an electric motorcycle?

See, I rather ride an electric hayabusa or a ninja.

Before, there was a difference between them, now that both can be powered by electricity the line blurs.

<comment><USER10> The only real difference is the electric bike has some stubby pedals. The reality is that those moving up from electric bike will be moving up to motorcycles. Can't beat two wheels with Chinese traffic. Nanchang resident 6 years, electric bike user 4 years, motorcycle resident in 6 months.</comment></comment>


Into Thin Error: Mountaineer Ed Viesturs on Making Mistakes (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/06/into-thin-error-mountaineer-ed-viesturs-on-making-mistakes.html <comment><USER2> I've done a bit of climbing. I think it takes more bravery to accept that conditions are bad and you need to turn around, than to continue on with the rest of the group.

It's not clear-cut, either. If you turn around and the group continues, and they don't die, it's really hard to accept that you made the right choice. Just because they got lucky and survived, sometimes the right choice was still to turn around. But there's no certainty, and it's hard not to second-guess your choices.

<comment><USER3> There is a fair amount of research into group dynamics and group decision making, specifically in the context of alpinism. For example [1], written in English, from the "Berg und Steigen" blog.

In general, I can't recommend German-language "Berg und Steigen" magazine enough. It's focuses on safety and risk management in mountain-related activities (mountaineering, indoor/outdoor climbing, skiing, ski touring, mountain biking, ...). Older issues become completely freely accessible in their archive [2].

[1] [https://www.bergundsteigen.blog/human-factor-and-decision- ma...](https://www.bergundsteigen.blog/human-factor-and-decision-making-the- next-steps/?lang=en) [2] [https://www.bergundsteigen.at/?module=archiv/ausgaben](https://www.bergundsteigen.at/?module=archiv/ausgaben)

<comment><USER4> The American Alpine Club produces an annual publication called "Accidents in North American Mountaineering" that collects and presents case studies of climbing[1] accidents, often with some analysis.

When I was a more active climber, I read it religiously every year. It was very interesting and I definitely learned some important safety lessons I put to good use in my own activities.

[1] All types, not just mountaineering

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > a mistake is a mistake even if you get away with it.

I've had this exact same feeling making mistakes on a motorbike, didn't get hurt, but scared me shitless for a few weeks nonetheless.

<comment><USER6> This is something called "results oriented thinking" it can be very destructive to learning in noise environments (e.g. poker, investing)

<comment><USER7> Understanding that a mistake is a mistake regardless of the result is literally the opposite of results oriented thinking.

<comment><USER8> SethTro's comment might be read several ways and they've not clarified whether they support or oppose cautious climbing practices.

One explainer of ROT uses poker as an analogy. ([https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-results- oriente...](https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-results-oriented- thinking-in-poker)) This is both a poor analogy, if read shallowly (follow a strategy even if there are occasional setbacks), and a possibly useful one (negative outcomes are far more consequential in mountaineering than at the poker table).

In cards (or many financial investments) it's possible to amortize risk over many bets --- you're rarely all-in on any one of them. In mountaineering, you're all-in all the time, and an early minor miscalculation or unwise choice may commit you to disaster. In the former case, taking small hits is sensible, in the latter, it's avoiding any extraneous risk thatis the wise move --- luck eventually runs out, and with high stakes, poor odds, and many bets, the daredevil strategy fares poorly.

You can of course find similar situations in finance and business. Startups, unlike VCs, are all-in on their specific venture. Funders can hedge bets, founders cannot.

In personal finance, there's the question of what size a financial hit a household can stand. For something like 40% of US households, finding funds for an unexpected $400 expense within a month is beyond their means. In a world with a steady rate of $400 shocks possible (medical bills, car repair, towing/impound fees, appliance repair, lawsuit or fines, unemployment, etc.), this means financial ruin is an everpresent looming threat.

<comment><USER9> I can't read his comment as anything but him agreeing with parent, i.e. labeling the parent's quoted text as ROT.

I think we're so used to point->counter->point->counter nested trees that we pattern match disagreement even when it's not there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd highly recommend reading Ed Viesturs' account of his ascent of K2 - "K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain", it also details the history of K2 mountaineering, amazing read.

<comment><USER11> One of my favorite mountaineering photos is one of Ed Viesturs navigating a long traverse across a > 50 degree snowfield high on K2 with Scott Fisher kneeling in the background on belay. Can't seem to find it now but I think I first saw in this book.

<comment><USER10> Doesn't seem to be in my copy of the book - there are a few of Viesturs and Fisher but none with belaying. If you're eager to find it, Viesturs seems pretty active on Instagram, he might be able to find it for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Charles Perrow's _Normal Accidents_ addresses this concept of risk from a complex systems (and complex organisations) perspective. The title comes from the fact that accidents arise _from normal operations_ \--- these systems are always operationg at the borders of control, often previous incidents have reduced perceptions of risk, further shaving safety margins, until there are none.

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/normal- accidents/oclc/1102386...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/normal- accidents/oclc/1102386873)

</comment><comment> awinter-py love how cool he is about missing his first attempt

> The weather was deteriorating, we'd used all of the rope we'd brought with > us, the conditions were getting worse and worse by the minute. That > umbilical cord of safety was stretched and maybe almost broken, and we > figured we might be able to get to the top, but no way were we going to get > down. And climbing a mountain has to be a round trip.

a plan isn't a strategy unless it accounts for resource trends and contingencies

this is why people tabletop / wargame things when they're important + involve uncertainty

</comment><comment> saiya-jin I like that guy a lot, humble overachiever, he was described by other elite mountaineers as calm at practically every situation. Not huge ego like many in that business.

That being said, there is survivorship bias with guys like him or Messner - they risked so many times and came out alive that they are by no means representative, rather an exception. Many folks like them lie frozen up there in some crevasse, just because of tiny mistake that you don't even realize you're doing, or simply unlucky with being at bad place at bad time.

<comment><USER12> Shorter "American Alpine Journal" (circa 1970s): we were tired, hungry, cold, low on oxygen, and that's when we made this stupid mistake and ${colleague} died.

I don't know what current standards may be; around the turn of the century there was a proposal that a team should include someone at base camp radioing simple math questions "6 times 9" and timing the response. If the response time increased significantly, they'd say it was time to turn back.

(Viesturs on how to train to climb without supplemental oxygen: he doesn't think he trained to do it, he's just lucky to be a freak)

<comment><USER13> 42\. Easy.

<comment><USER14> This is the right answer. I read it in a book once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> But on a mountain, sometimes it is black and white, right? I mean, you can be as rah-rah relativism as you want, but sometimes the world makes it very clear that you've made a mistake. All else being equal, if you survive and the other guy doesn't, your decision was right and his was wrong.

>> Yeah. But I make a point of not judging people. You can't go up to them and say, "Nyah, nyah, I was right and you were wrong."

Especially if the other guy doesn't survive. Then, no, you can't go up to them and say that. I mean, presumably if they're dead they didn't even come back down the mountain, so what are you going to do? Climb back up and thumb your nose at them?

</comment><comment><USER16> Alex Honnold has some great advice on risk mitigation and erros as well. For a guy who get's promoted as a huge risk taker it's just not really true when he explains what goes into a big wall solo. For example he stated that if he could only do one type of climbing it would be typical sport climbing so he could actually take chances and work right at the point of failure; not where you want to be in the middle of a free solo.

<comment><USER17> I can't find a link right now but there's a great interview out there that Honnold and Peter Croft did together talking about their different approaches to free soloing. It was interesting to hear the contrasts in their styles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Couple of book recommendations if you find mountaineering and its associated safety culture interesting:

Forever on the Mountain is a pretty in-depth reporting of a spectacularly deadly mountaineering disaster on Denali (or McKinley), which Ed Viesturs has climbed ~200 times per the article. I know it's easy to say with the benefit of knowing how it ends, but you can just watch the mistakes pile up.

From TFA:

"These high-altitude mountains are one of the few places on the planet where there is literally no help. If you screw up and break a leg, it's up to your partner to get you down."

Touching the Void recounts an accident in which this was exactly the case. The author broke his leg on the way down at altitude, and things got (much) worse from there. Spoiler alert, he survived to write the book. Pick a time when you can finish it in one sitting. Once you get about 1/3 of the way in, you likely won't be able to put it down.

Everest the Hard Way is a telling of a successful Everest expedition, but provides a good look into the planning and decision making that makes that happen.

Deep Survival is also worth a read. It doesn't focus exclusively on mountaineering, but as I recall, some of the case-studies are mountaineering. Sorry, it's been a while.

Into Thin Air, from which the article riffs on the title, covers the 1996 Everest disaster. It's been even longer since I read that, but it's worth a read.

I'd be interested in a book recommendation if anybody has one that talks about how safety culture is spread. I'm a rock climber (as distinct from mountaineering), and one of the things I observe is that the safety culture in the sport _sucks_ [0], [1]. I'd be curious what the climbing community can do to better spread or develop a safety culture within the rapidly growing sport, especially as fewer people are being brought in by experienced mentors and are instead getting into it via rock gyms.

My admittedly outside understanding is that mountaineering has a much more developed and widespread safety culture, perhaps because the barriers to entry almost require getting into the sport via a mentor.

[0] I saw somebody (top rope) belaying outside while lying in a hammock. This was on a single pitch route with ample space to stand. Even if you have to be anchored, there's just no reason to impede your hand and arm mobility like that.

[1] A representative for a major gear manufacturer (if you climb, you've heard of them) was explaining a new safety feature on a new model of their belay device. He was telling me about it and started giving an example of where it would be valuable by saying something along the lines of "suppose you were climbing and your belayer didn't know what they were doing".

It's telling and disappointing that a major gear manufacturer seems to have accepted that the safety culture in the sport has allowed this scenario to be plausible and/or common.

<comment><USER2> Annapurna - Maurice Herzog. One of my favorites.

Rock climbing: I was very happy about all the coverage around the Dawn Wall project, with Caldwell and Jorgeson. A big part of that climb was finding ways to do it safely, protected all the way. Great contrast with all the free solo hype that had gotten so much coverage before.

One of the worst experiences of my life was trying to spot and move pads around for a buddy trying to climb a super-highball in the Buttermilks. Horrifying. I didn't want to help but nobody else was around.

<comment><USER19> When I read Annapurna: First Conquest of an 8000-meter Peak many years ago I was blown away by the story which was both a huge victory in that era of mountaineering but also a personal tragedy for Herzog. This book together with Touching the Void and Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer are very captivating books even if you are not so much into mountaineering.

However, I have later read True Summit: What Really Happened on the Legendary Ascent of Annapurna by David Roberts which provides a different perspective on the Annapurna expedition.

And to reply to the grandparent post: Joe Simpson has written a number of books and while they are not specifically about safety culture they often touch on the ethics and dilemmas of high altitude climbing just as Touching the Void did by telling a story where the rope was cut.

<comment><USER2> Interesting! Would you compare Roberts' book with Boukreev's response to Into Thin Air, The Climb?

<comment><USER19> Honestly, it's many years since I read these books so my memory is a bit hazy, but from what I remember Boukreev's book was a response to what he saw as Krakauer's criticism of his actions as a climbing leader during the fatal 1996 Everest disaster.

Roberts is more like a historian with the perspective that Herzog perhaps wasn't so heroic after all but instead, despite poor leadership and reckless decision-making, was saved by his companions that were the true unsung heroes of the expedition.

The first book is a rebuttal, the second is trying to reveal what really happened many years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Love it, applies to many domains</comment>


Lisa Zhang, Facebook Data Intern: Things I learned - <AUTHOR> http://www.lisazhang.ca/2010/12/things-i-learned.html <comment><USER2> I have to wonder if a lot of the people criticizing this blog post actually read the whole thing.

Note the title: Things _I_ learned. She's posting about _her_ internship experience and the lessons _she_ learned. She's not trying to give nuanced, universally applicable advice for how to become famous in every circumstance and industry.

She's talking about "fame" from a specific perspective -- that of a student who might be intimidated by the success of someone like Zuckerberg. She relates the example of Paul Butler and his "fame". It's clear he's not "famous" in the conventional sense, but that he simply created something that people in the industry liked enough to tweet and email around. She realizes that there may not be anything intrinsically different about the people who attract "fame", and that her having cut Zuckerberg in the lunch line makes him just another regular person who lines up for lunch and gets cut in line. The reason Zuck's famous is that he did something that people liked (and now he's arguably conventionally "famous" because peopled liked it at scale).

I found this to be a simple and useful reminder that our heroes are human too, and all of them got where they are by doing stuff.

There's an almost pathological compulsion here to analyze every word and sentence, hoping for some incisive way to show one's cleverness. I think that's missing the point.

<comment><USER3> I debated whether to add the comment criticizing it. I gave a compliment first of what I liked about the essay. Then, I realize some might take the essay another way, so I said it wouldn't hurt to put in my 2 cent of this. No conspiracy.

<comment><USER4> What is fundamental to most peoples' lack of accomplishment?

Is it a lack of understanding of the meta behind fame and accomplishment, or is the fact that they have done anything yet?

Priorities man. :) Lets try to promulgate what will get people productive and moving and then we can start nitpicking over the peculiars of how people come to fame in their field.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "Famous people are famous because they do things. There's nothing more to > it, and nothing less."

I agree with the "they do things" part but wholeheartedly disagree with "There's nothing more to it." There's a LOT more to it. I have a really good friend who ran a social network between 2003-2006 and had millions of users. He is a brilliant coder and worked really really hard to grow the site. He "did things".

He had a vision, built the foundations himself, assembled a capable team, delegated appropriately, and oversaw the operations as needed. But he's not famous today. Why not? Because his social network didn't make it big. It was successful enough to give him a good middle-class lifestyle (better than ramen profitable) but it didn't make him millions. And today nobody knows of his brilliance or leadership skills. You could say he's not famous because he didn't push through harder but then you better hold that criteria for everyone else who is famous too.

<comment><USER6> IIRC the american dream doesn't come with any warranty. There's no entitlement to success. He did his best but failed. Kudos to him, but he'll have to try again.

<comment><USER7> Since when does "comfortable middle-class lifestyle" equal failure? I think most people would love to make a decent income off their own project as opposed to getting a paycheck to be subservient to a boss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Donald Knuth's Christmas Tree Lecture 2010: [http://stanford- online.stanford.edu/seminars/knuth/101206-kn...](http://stanford- online.stanford.edu/seminars/knuth/101206-knuth-500.asx)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for that!

mplayer -dumpstream "mms://proedvid.stanford.edu/knuth/musings/101206/101206-knuth-500.wmv"

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The money quote for me:

"I did some things I'm proud of and a few that I'm not. I failed a lot, but learned a lot too. Hopefully, in 2011, I won't let trivial fears set me back: I'll do more, try more, and say "yes" more. There's just too much to lose otherwise."

Fortis cadere, cedere non potest(The brave may fall, but never yield.)

</comment><comment><USER10> For a well-reasoned counter argument, may I recommend the excellent Fooled by Randomness? "Doing things" is necessary but not sufficient condition to becoming great.

</comment><comment><USER11>
         1) Famous people are famous because they do things. There's nothing more to it,
         and nothing less.
         3) When you decide to do things, opportunities come.

These two always bear some reitaration.

</comment><comment><USER4> Money quote:

" I realized that their ticket to fame is actually really simple: when they had an idea, they followed through.

Simply put, they did things. They executed."

Now we just need to make that stick.

<comment><USER3> I'm very much against this type of thinking. My garbage man does stuff, but I don't see him famous. A lot of people do stuff. Doing stuff is maybe a prerequisite of being famous but it is not sufficient(or maybe it is not, you can be born into it :D). What I see central to all these guys is a capacity for taking risks with the potential for high payoff.

<comment><USER12> When she says "does stuff", she means, when you have an idea that you want to see realized, and then you follow through and take it to its logical conclusion to have an impact on others. Then repeat.

Many, many smart people have ideas, but can never finish anything. Or for that matter, never start anything.

You hear "does stuff", and take it out of context into its broad definition, which includes your garbage man. Then of course it doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER13> So stuff means only startups and hacking here right? My dad took an exam in which people well above his age fail, but he passed and got selected in a prestigious government position. He then went on to work in a lot of departments of Indian government. In short he has done a lot of "stuff" stuff. But I don't see him being famous.

<comment><USER12> No. It's not a hard and fast rule of the world and the way it works. It's a good first-order approximation, and a necessary, but not sufficient condition.

Your dad may be famous amongst his peers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>